The Anti-Bible Convention of 1853

I happened across a newspaper article from the Liberty Tribune in Liberty, MO from June 17, 1853. The article talks of an anti-Bible convention that took place in Hartford, CT. Here is the text of the article:

The Anti-Bible Convention

We did design to pass over in silence this puerile gathering at Hartford. A friend, however, suggests that some notice of their sayings would supply a desirable key to the men and women - aye, women save the mark!-who are mumbling their aversion to a book which being inspired of God is therefore pure, and holy, and practicle in its teachings, and has become a stone of stumbling in their path. We propose, in compliance with the suggestion, to cull some of their insane ravings, taking our extracts from the report of the Herald.

The first speaker was Andrew Jackson Davis, who being the professed author of a book impiously styled "Revelations"is scarcely to be considered an impartial witness. The more the Bible is diffused and read the less Mr. Davis' book be sold and the more will his idle dreamings be contemned and dispised. Hear him:

"The speaker went on to deny the authenticity of the Bible and the Christian religion. We pray for work and for liberty, continued he, for human love and the kingdom of Heaven upon earth, which must necessarily come after all sectarianism is forgotten. In conclusion, I would say we should free ourselves from the sectarianism of the church, free ourselves from the mythology of the Bible, and free ourselves from the chains of superstition and bigotry. Reason, reason is the sovereign of the soul, and truth is the sovereign of reason."

Mr. William Green was appointed chairman. His sentiments are worthy of the Convention:

"Truth is indestructible, error alone can be destroyed. I am an atheist. If rum-selling is wrong, if slavery is wrong, if war is wrong, and if you believe in a God that sanctions such things, I do not. He is not my God. If government can be overturned by reason and argument, let it be overturned. If the gentleman who wishes to prove I am a monkey, or a tiger, let him do so. I am content. If he will prove me a devil, very well. I am content to go to hell; for I want to go where I belong. Let us be plain spoken. I intend hereafter to speak of Jesus and other personages in the Bible, and I mean to do as a man, and if you won't permit me, I will - that's all. I believe some things in the Bible to be historical, and metaphysical, and moral. They will stand, but I shall attack which I believe to be immoral. I have no respect for it as a book, and I shall reject what I conceive to be untrue and uphold what I think is true. I shall sit in judgement upon Jesus of Nazareth as a man accountable to be the same laws that I a, liable to be mistaken, as I am, and to be tried in the judgement day with me; therefore, in reviewing what he said and did, I shall judge him as I think fit. I don't care that, (snapping his fingers) for I am a man."

A Mr. Wright offered the following resolution:

"Resolved, that the Bible, in some parts of the Old and New Testament, sanctions injustice, concubinage, prostitution, oppression, war, plunder, and wholesale murder; and therefore the doctrine that the Bible, as a whole, originated, is false and injurious to the social and spiritual growth and perfection of man."

His speech, however, was but an echo of his resolution, not the slightest attempt to demonstrate its truth seeming to have entered his mind. The chairman followed, with more of his reckless blasphemy. He must be the pink of the infidels. He said:

"The Bible contains the strangest, the wildest, the most childish, and the most blasphemous represenations of God that ever entered into the mind of man. God is represented as eating, drinking, and depending upon reports from his servants, as to what is going on in the world; for instance, in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, He is made to say that He will go down and see for himself.

"We insist that this book gives us a slanderous and blasphemous representation of the character and being of God, and there is nothing wicked, base and cruel in man, that God is not represented as doing. The Bible sanctions polygamy, concubinage, theft, conjugal infidelity, bloodshed, and murder. Theologians condemn the Mormon Bible, but it is far less vicious than the Christian.

Readers will, from these extracts, judge of both the intellectual and moral calibre of members of this convention, and will see that we were abundantly justified in expressing the hope that the friends of the inspired volume would not give them importance by entering into conflict with them. Such are not the men to impede the circulation of the holy scriptures, or to destroy confidence in their truthful inspiration, - not a wit of it. A Mormon Bible, or an Andrew Jackson Davis' revelation, could withstand more severe and abler assaults than these; how much more so the immortal volume which was given by the inspiration of God?